Different Social Worlds - Is Homosexuality the Concern Here?
Post 2: Context, Context, Context
“Clobber Passages” in Context
Joachim Patinir (circa 1480-1524). Landscape with the Destruction of Sodom and Comorrah. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Wikimedia Commons.
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If the first three conditions for a successful new business are “location, location, location,” then “context, context, context” is essential for a fair reading of a biblical passage. Even with the best tools of biblical scholarship, some biblical passages are ambiguous. Understanding verses and passages in context is important as we interpret biblical writings.
This is the second of three posts that illustrate how aspects of context make a difference for our understanding of some passages often referred to as the “clobber passages.” These are passages often interpreted to condemn same-sex relationships and LGBTQ+ people.
What scholars call “social context” is significant for understanding these passages. In the previous post, some elements of social context proved relevant for understanding words that have been translated as “homosexual.” In this post, we will see that knowledge of the social world in which the passage was written makes a difference for understanding its meaning. Sometimes interpreters bring their own concerns and assumptions to biblical passages in ways that can distort the meaning. Such interpretations can make a passage seem to be about issues of homosexuality when it is really addressing something else.
Recognizing Different Social Worlds
The Bible was written in societies that were not like contemporary Western societies today. Slavery was a reality of the ancient world. Most Mediterranean cultures were deeply patriarchal. Children were the property of their father. The mortality rate for young children was 50 percent. The dominant livelihood was farming, much of it for subsistence. Many of the laws and traditions found in the Bible reflect those societal conditions and not rules to follow today. In a world that has mostly abolished slavery, for example, we can see laws about slavery as historical artifacts not applicable for our lives today.
The Sodom and Gomorrah Story: Genesis 19:1–29
Some interpreters attribute God’s destruction of these cities to the desire of the men of Sodom to “know” two males (actually angels) who have come to warn Abraham’s nephew Lot (Genesis 19:5). These readers interpret this demand to “know” the visitors as homosexuality and use this as a “clobber” passage to define homosexuality as a sin.
In its context, however, the story has more to do with showing the proper treatment of outsiders as guests and condemns the sexualized mob violence against outsiders that the story depicts. The value of hospitality is the core concern in this context. Lot offers members of his own household, his daughters, to the violent mob hoping to keep them from mistreating his guests.
A parallel story occurs in Judges 19. A traveling Levite from Ephraim arrives in Gibeah and accepts an offer to spend the night with a man from the same tribe. However, Gibeah is in the territory of the tribe of Benjamin, thus the host and his guest are both outsiders. That night, the men of Gibeah come to the house and demand that the Levite be given to them so that they “may know him” (Judges 19:22). The Hebrew is identical to Genesis 19:5. The visiting Levite shoves his poor concubine out the door instead, and the men gang rape her to death.
In both stories, Lot and his visitors and the Levite and his Ephraimite host are outsiders. These are not stories about unbridled homosexual lust, but stories about the mistreatment of resident aliens. The men of Sodom and the men of Gibeah are using sexual violence, rape, against unwanted outsiders.
If the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is to be interpreted as God’s judgment upon the sin of homosexuality, consistency demands that the Judges 19 story be read as the biblical indictment of the sin of heterosexuality. Most readers can see the difference between heterosexual relations and this disturbing gang rape attack on the poor concubine. The same distinction applies to the Sodom story. Gang rape of a guest is the offense not the gender of the victim. If anything, the gender of the victim indicates that a woman is less valued than a male guest.
When other biblical writers comment on the “sin” of Sodom, it is never for homosexuality, but for inhospitality and injustice to the poor. For an example, see Ezekiel 16:49–50.
Jude 7
The author of this letter draws on the Sodom story as an example to warn his readers. The question is this: what is he warning them about? He says that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for indulging in sexual immorality and pursuing “other flesh.”
Jude draws upon a Jewish interpretive tradition that equated the mating of the angels with human women in Genesis 6:1–2 with Jewish intermarriage with Gentiles alluded to in Jude 6. Jude’s polemic seems aimed at persons who might “deviate from the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 3). In other words, Jude is communicating to his audience, “don’t deviate from the norms of our community or be prepared to be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah.”
Today most of us do not share this ancient community’s concerns about angels mating with human women, although communities continue to discuss norms about who to marry. This passage in Jude contains no clear address to homosexual relationships today. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah that Jude mentions addresses hospitality and protection of guests from sexual violence, not same-sex attraction or relationships.
Matthew 19:3–10 and Mark 10:2–12
Opponents of same-sex marriage cite this passage as evidence that God ordained marriage as between one man and one woman. The passages in Matthew and Mark are similar. In this passage, Jesus is asked if it is legal for a man to divorce his wife. In Matthew 19:4 Jesus quotes Genesis 1:27: God “made them male and female.” The next verses summarize Genesis 2:24: “for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, the two will be one body.”
However, the question posed to Jesus is about the legality of divorce according to Jewish custom. His answer has nothing to do with same-sex marriage. Instead, he cites the Genesis passages to oppose the practice of men who discard their wives. In the social context of the passage, divorce was a common topic of discussion and debate, not same-sex relationships.
Interpreters who emphasize the mention of “male and female” as the only possible gender designations ignore the end of this passage in Matthew. As the passage continues, Jesus actually affirms eunuchs, people seen as neither male nor female. See a post about this passage.
Context Matters
Context matters, then. When we approach biblical texts, we need to ask what concerns are important for the authors of the text in their context. We need to consider whether the text is really about the issues we bring to it from our contemporary debates.
Was Sodom destroyed as a punishment for homosexuality?
The context of the story indicates Sodom’s offense was its sexual violence against guests not mutual same-sex relationships.
Does Jesus quote Genesis to comment on same-sex marriage?
In an account presented in the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, Jesus quotes Genesis to emphasize the permanence of marriage. The debate is about divorce. No mention is made of same-sex marriage. In verses immediately following the debate in Matthew, Jesus affirms eunuchs, people in his time who were seen as neither male nor female. Interpretations that emphasize “male and female” in the quotations from Genesis ignore this affirmation.
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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
Forthcoming published results of Bible and Human Sexuality Seminar:
Michael Carden, “Do Not Neglect to Show Hospitality to Strangers.”
Susan M. (Elli) Elliott. “Disposable Spouses and the Gender Binary: Mark 10 and Matthew 19.”
